The state of Oklahoma announced yesterday that it would pursue murder charges and a possible death sentence against Terry Nichols for his role as Timothy McVeigh's accomplice in the 1995 bombing of a government building in which 168 people died.

The trial of the Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh, in 1997 cost US taxpayers $13.8m (£9.8m), according to figures released yesterday by Richard Matsch, the judge who presided over the trial in Denver.

Within hours of Timothy McVeigh's death by lethal injection in Terre Haute, Indiana, on Monday some web surfers in a US internet chat room followed a web link to watch a bootleg video clip of the execution, and put their computers in danger of invasion by hackers.

Although President Bush used the occasion of Timothy McVeigh's execution to speak to the nation about capital punishment, the death of the Oklahoma bomber is unlikely to stem calls for the abolition of federal executions.